


Guilt

by enthusiasmgirl



Category: Daredevil (TV), The Defenders (Marvel TV)
Genre: Angst, Defenders Spoilers, Excuse me while I work out some Defenders feelings, Gen, Grief/Mourning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-19
Updated: 2017-08-19
Packaged: 2018-12-17 04:03:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 833
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11843607
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/enthusiasmgirl/pseuds/enthusiasmgirl
Summary: Foggy's thought process during the final episode of the Defenders and afterward.





	Guilt

**Author's Note:**

> SPOILERS FOR DEFENDERS! SERIOUSLY I TRIED TO KEEP THEM OUT OF THE TAGS AND SUMMARY, EVERYONE. PLEASE DON'T READ THIS IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN IT.
> 
> So this is seriously just something I wrote in an hour or two post-Defenders... like, I'm still tearing up and recovering.
> 
> I just... I needed to write on my headcanon of Foggy's thought process during that episode and beyond while it was still raw and before other fans inevitably arrived to criticize him for his reaction to things.
> 
> Grief is... it's complicated. And Foggy and Karen's feelings about Matt being Daredevil are equally complicated. It's not really a simple or easy situation.
> 
> So here is that. Unbeta'd and very rough. Be kind.

Until very recently in his life, Foggy had never experienced loss. Not really. A grandmother when he was too young to really feel it. A second cousin who he barely knew to a car accident.

But his parents and sister were healthy and alive. And he spent most of his life privileged enough to not have to face any great personal tragedy. Meeting Matt had given him some sense of it vicariously, of course. He couldn't really imagine having ever gone through what Matt had gone through in his life, but he tried to understand it and put himself in his friend's shoes as much as he could. It helped him to know how lucky he was.

And then Mrs. Cardenas died. Such a sweet woman, and so trusting of him, and he couldn't help but feel like he killed her. It punctured his idea of the world as ultimately just, as a place where good people who did the right thing reaped the rewards. It shocked him.

But as shocking as it was, it was nothing compared to the way he would feel when he worriedly burst into Matt's apartment half-drunk and found his best friend, his partner, torn apart and bleeding in dark clothes and a mask on the floor.

That was life-altering. It sat with Foggy forever afterward, a constant awareness and anxiety in the pit of his stomach every moment of every day. It had never occurred to him before that Matt might die. That he would ever have to exist in a world without him. No more scribbled plans for their future together on bar napkins. No more arguments about the finer points of the law that went on for hours until one of them (usually Foggy) conceded in exhaustion. No more firm hand on the crook of his elbow needing guidance across the street. It hit Foggy so unexpectedly and completely. Matt was his moral compass. His true north. And he could just be gone someday. One moment he's there and the next, never again.

No, he _would_ just be gone someday, Foggy realized as he listened to Matt try and explain himself upon awakening. He couldn't believe what he was hearing. He tried to understand, tried desperately to accept the new reality Matt was forcing on him, but it horrified him. Matt was intent on being Daredevil. He was going to get himself killed. It wasn't just a possibility, but a certainty.

He pulled away after that. He knew he did. He told Matt that they could try to make it work, and he really did make the effort. But he couldn't help it. His brain just fixated on every worst case scenario imaginable constantly, and he couldn't handle it. He'd had to retreat and put some distance between them just to start to feel normal again.

And now Matt really was gone. He was buried under dozens of stories worth of rubble deep underneath the city at Midland Circle. And after all that, the months of popping antacid medications to stop his stomach from churning, of headaches and panic attacks and worry... Foggy just felt numb. The feeling he had spent so many months protecting himself from having to face again, panicking about and desperately trying to avoid? When all of the other Defenders had returned to the police precinct and Matt hadn't been with them, there was only acceptance. Relief even. 'Yep,' he'd thought. 'That's about right. At least now I don't have to keep wondering when it will happen.' He'd held onto Karen, there more for her than himself.

He meant it when he told Luke and Claire that he'd known Matt would die. As he said it, he disturbed himself with the coldness of how it came out, knew it was wrong. He tried to lean into Claire's hug, searched in that moment for something, anything to match her grief.

But all he found was guilt.

Later on, much later, as he laid in bed and thought through it, mentally poked at that numbness, at that guilt, he would realize the truth.

He thought it was guilt that he had given Matt that suit and sent him to that building. But there was more to it than that. There was guilt for how surprised Matt had looked when Foggy called him his family. Guilt for introducing him to Jessica. Guilt for not calling him sooner.

Guilt for wanting so badly to never again have to feel the way he felt the night Matt confessed that he had at some point just decided that he may as well live his life as though Matt was already dead. It had worked.

He'd told Matt that he never needed Daredevil. He'd only needed his friend.

The numbness finally faded and the pain surged back, the dam finally breaking and sobs overtaking his body as he realized that he'd spent the time he could have had with one hating the other instead. It wasn't worth it.


End file.
